Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment aims to analyze the notion of a judgment of beauty or a judgment of taste. There is a basic dichotomy between two opposed sets of features that Kant explores through his various characterizations of judgments of beauty. On one hand, judgments of beauty are based on feeling (the object is not subsumed under the concept of a purpose that it is supposed to satisfy). On the other hand however, judgments of beauty are unlike judgments of the agreeable in not involving desire for the object. So what does it mean to make a pure aesthetic judgment of the beautiful? Kant investigates whether the ‘power’ of judgment provides itself with an priori principle. This principle would assert the suitability of all nature for our faculty of judgment in general. Four Moments/Disinterested Kant wonders how fine art- or the beauty of works of art- is possible and categorizes aesthetic judgments (or ‘judgments of taste’) into four “moments.” In the “First Moment” judgments of beauty are based on feeling, specifically the feelings of pleasure (he also discusses feelings of pain). However this pleasure is what he calls “disinterested.” Meaning that the subject does not need to desire the object in order to experience pleasure from it, nor must the object generate desire. We take pleasure in something simply because it is beautiful, rather than judging it beautiful because we find it pleasurable. He argues “the satisfaction which we combine with the representation of the existence of an object is called ‘interest’”(Kant 420) while “taste is the faculty of judging of an object or a method of representing it by an entirely disinterested satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The object of such satisfaction is called beautiful... ... middle of paper ... ...functions of judging is represented by the distinction between the determinative and the reflective power of judgment Kant is looking for an answer to the question: is a judgment of taste subjective? The requisites for fine art are imagination, understanding, soul and taste. Taste has both a subjective aspect, in that is consists in a felt response to the aesthetic qualities of an object, and an objective aspect, in that we can give reasons for our aesthetic judgments. Thus, it seems, the processes of appreciation and evaluation which lead to the conclusion that an object, whether a work of art or otherwise, is beautiful, are the same in all cases, and the paradigm for those processes must be that which is furnished by the appreciation and estimation of a natural beauty free of all intervention by concepts, whether the concept of art or any more specific concept.
In Gaut’s essay, “The Ethical Criticism of Art”, he addresses the relevance of an art piece’s ethical value when making an aesthetic evaluation. His key argument revolves around the attitudes that works of art manifest such that he presents the following summary “If a work manifests ethically reprehensible attitudes, it is to that extent aesthetically defective, and if a work manifests ethically commendable attitudes, it is to that extent aesthetically meritorious”. In direct contrast with formalists, who divine a work’s merit through an assessment of its style and compositional aspects, Gaut states that any art piece’s value requires a pro tanto judgement. This pro tanto position allows for pieces considered stylistic masterpieces, to be
Furthermore, resonation can be found in Preziosi exploration of the establishment of female identification through aesthetics. Within Preziosi chapter on aesthetics he addresses main issues including “Kant’s Critique of Judgment, judgment about beauty, and perception of perfection.” Aesthetics was addressed in the perception of how the female body is formed and encased while a male looks at the female body. In this case the male would be Degas gazing at his ballerina while either sketching his model or doing a sculpture of the ballerina. Preziosi states that “there should be two kinds of theory or sciences of knowledge corresponding to each logic and aesthetics.” This concept of two kinds of theory made more apparent as every sculptor Degas made is presented as a different theory, yet the two theories are different, Degas’s artwork deals with both logic and aesthetics. Logic can be applied to Degas’s____, works of art. Where as aesthetics deals with____. Later on in Preziosi chapter on aesthetics, he brings up the issue of “the idea that sensory knowledge could have its own perfection-and, further, that an aesthetic judgment about beauty or beautiful objects.” When viewing Degas’s sculptor the
In this article Winckelmann states that the good taste in art that is present in contemporary works stems from the work of the ancient Greeks. The beauty in the modern works of artists like Raphael (especially his Madonna and child with St Sixtus and St Barbara) hold such beauty, complexity of emotion, and good taste because he draws on the ideas set up by the great ancient sculptures and society in which they lived and drew inspiration from. Winckelmann categorizes the ancients greatness into two main ideas that are necessary for contemporaries to draw from in order to reach greatness: Natural beauty and noble simplicity and quiet grandeur.
The nature of aesthetics has puzzled many, where questions and reflections about art, beauty, and taste have intersected with our understanding of what a real art experience truly is. The notion of the aesthetic experience, an experience that differs from the everyday experiences, has been given great consideration by English art critic Clive Bell and American philosopher John Dewey since the beginning of the 20th century. Both have spent much deliberation on the distinctive character of aesthetic experience; yet have complete opposing ideas on how to go about understanding aesthetic experience’s ecosystem. Bell takes a formalist approach, as he thinks that to understand everything about a work of art, one has to only look at the work of art.
(15) The whole passage reads, "In this way nature is not judged to be sublime in our aesthetical judgments in so far as it excites fear, but because it calls up that power in us (which is not nature) of regarding as small the things about which we are solicitous (goods, health, and life), and of regarding its might (to which we are no doubt subjected in respect of these things) as nevertheless without any dominion over us and our personality to which we must bow where our highest fundamental propositions, and their assertion or abandonment, are concerned." Kant, p. 101.
Beauty is experienced through visual stimuli. The human being's intake of beauty is through both conscious and unconscious decisions. (4) (4) The question is what motivates our unconscious decisions...
Kant gives a summary of the place of objects in our understanding, and how they are perceived, in section 1 of the 'Transcendental Aesthetic' [2; B33 to B36]. He divides all knowledge of objects into intuition and concepts. Objects are presented in intuition, and they are thought using concepts. As an illustration, if I look at a particular chair that I can see in the corner of the room I am in at this moment, it is presented immediately to my intuition as a series of colour and hue sensations occupying the space of my field of vision. As such, it is simply a collection of ...
Just as other works that reflect art, pieces in the category of fine arts serve the important message of passing certain messages or portraying a special feeling towards a particular person, function or activity. At times due to the nature of a particular work, it can become so valuable that its viewers cannot place a price on it. It is not the nature or texture of an art that qualifies it, but the appreciation by those who look at it (Lewis & Lewis, 2008).
In Introduction to Aesthetics, G.W.F. Hegel’s opening paragraphs describe the spacious realm of the beautiful, the relationship of beauty in both nature and art, and the limitation and defense of aesthetics. Hegel addresses that the proper way to express the meaning of aesthetics is to refer to it as Philosophy of Fine Art, however, once adopting this expression humans, “exclude the beauty of nature” (Hegel). As humans, it has become a way of life to use our senses to help describe the beauty of nature, animals and other people in our world. According to Hegel, “beauty of art is higher than nature” (Hegel) and it is the art that is created by the spirit that stands above that of nature. Nature is an incomplete substance and the, “realms of nature have not been classified and examined from the point of view of beauty” (Hegel). Therefore, there is a difference between the beauty of nature and
David Hume’s essay “Of the Standard of Taste” addresses the problem of how objects are judged. Hume addresses three assumptions about how aesthetic value is determined. These assumptions are: all tastes are equal, some art is better than others, and aesthetic value of art is defined by a person’s taste(from lecture). However, Hume finds the three beliefs to be an “inconsistent triad”(from lecture) of assumptions. If all taste is equal but taste defines the aesthetic value, how can it be that some art is good and others bad? Wouldn’t all art be equal if all taste is equal? Hume does not believe all objects are equal in their beauty or greatness. He states that some art is meant to endure, “the beauties, which are naturally fitted to excite agreeable sentiment, immediately display their energy”.(text pg 259) So how will society discern what is agreeable and what is not? Hume proposes a set of true judges whose palates are so refined they can precisely define the aesthetic value of something.
AA theory by Clive Bell suggests the pinpoints the exact characteristic which makes a work true art. According to Bell, an artwork must produce “aesthetic emotion” (365). This aesthetic emotion is drawn from the form and formality of an artwork rather than whether or not it is aesthetically pleasing or how well it imitates what it is trying to depict. The relation of objects to each other, the colors used, and the qualities of the lines are seemingly more important than what emotion or idea the artwork is trying to provoke. Regardless of whether or not the artwork is a true imitation of certain emotions, ideals, or images, it cannot be true art unless it conjures this aesthetic emotion related to formality (367).
Kant argues that beauty is equivalent to morality. He states, “The beautiful pleases immediately, disinterestedly, as the result of freedom of the imagination, and with universal validity. Virtuous motivation pleases immediately although independently of any antecedent interest, on the basis of a free employment of intellectual faculties, and with universal validity.” Assuming Kant is referring to physical beauty, Kant explains that beauty is something that is objective to all as it pleases and provides freedom to humans. He further explains that virtue is same in giving pleasure giving human intellectual freedom, and compares beauty and virtue by claiming they are parallel. He believes beauty has an impact on moral decisions and defines this as the groundwork of morality. While Kant defends this idea, Aristotle and Hume disagrees with Kant, stating that a virtue is morality, beauty is not a virtue, therefore beauty is n...
In this paper, I investigate the overall Enlightenment role that Kant conceived for aesthetic experience, and especially, of the beautiful. (1) I argue for an interpretation of Kant's aesthetics whereby the experience of the beautiful may play the same functional role in the invisible church of natural religion as Scripture does for the visible churches of ecclesiastical religions. Although aesthetic experience, for Kant, is autonomous by virtue of its disinterestedness, seemingly paradoxically, this very autonomy enables the beautiful, potentially, to serve profound moral and Enlightenment aims within his system. For Kant, because we are both rational and animal, we require embodiments of moral ideas, and thus, the experience of the beautiful is necessary in order to f...
It is difficult to define or explain the artistic impulse, even today, and it is even more difficult to pinpoint the one point in history when human beings developed a desire for aesthetically pleasing objects. However, several trends that have endured for thousands of years, particularly the decoration of vessels, textiles, and jewelry, and the creation of drawings and sculpture even today when they are no longer the easiest way to tell a story, leads me to believe that there is something in the human spirit that has always sought out the beautiful, whether in concord or conflict with the practical. And although the role of art and artists has changed drastically in the past and will likely continue to do so in the future, there will always be an impulse, whether admired and supported or looked down upon by society, to make life just a little bit brighter.
Noel Carroll analyses in his paper ‘Aesthetic Experience Revisited’ three different views about ways to attain an aesthetic experience. The first account is the affect-orientated approach which purports to distinguish a certain emotive quality in the experience caused by an artwork. The second account is the axiological approach whose capacity commits to the necessary condition for an experience to be valued on its own. Finally, the content-oriented view addresses the properties that are produced by an artwork calling attention to all the main features (eg. expressive and formal properties) towards which the experience is directed. The paper will support the content-oriented view as the best account for attaining a distinctively aesthetic attitude.